Over the past two seasons that we’ve led the Official Collegiate Series for the island of Ireland, we’ve contemplated how we can keep in contact with those that graduate or simply aren’t able to compete anymore.

We also wanted to connect with former Irish students who hadn’t competed in the series but have found an interest in gaming, in particular Irish esports.

This publication won’t be boring.

It’ll highlight the progress of Alumni Guild members (via a podcast), share a mix of interesting industry news pieces, give updates on the local esports community with some sponsor offers thrown in plus much more.

We want this to be for you and the young students that will follow you. As we go through this journey keep an eye on alumni.irelandcollegiate.com. It’s here that we’ll ensure all the relevant information is available for you.

Now for the content that isn’t boring.

Anime culture has moved into the West's mainstream's spotlight the same way gaming culture has over the past decade  — suddenly it's cool to like and be knowledgeable about anime. Brands' marketing efforts are all in, from McDonalds to Nescafe to adidas to Nissan... the list goes on and on. Pop culture superstars have also been flying the anime flag to great reception, like Hip Hop Artist Megan Thee Stallion to Megastar Streamer Valkyrae to American Sprinter Noah Lyles.

Esports orgs were early to the overlap that gaming fans were also keen on anime — I wrote a feature on the topic on ESI a few years ago — Team Liquid has collabed with Naruto and recently Death Note, 100 Thieves has done collabs with Attack on Titan, Dragon Ball Z, Jujutsu Kaisen and Pokemon and most recently both FURIA and Team BDS have collabed with My Hero Academia.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. In May, I spoke on the topic with DigiDay reporter Alex Lee on a Twitter Space discussion, you can read the writeup here.

Kerry Waananen is a Seattleite turned Amsterdammer with 4+ years of esports and gaming industry experience across media, content, marketing, communications & agency. Kerry is the Senior Communications Manger at GRID Esports.

Finding the various Irish esports communities across each of the different game titles isn’t easy is it? As we continue to connect the dots of esports on the island we thought we’d help solve this problem.

Each month we’ll carry upcoming community events here. As this is our first edition we thought we’d start by introducing the communities we’re connected with to kick things off!

There are many more across the likes of R6 Siege, Apex Legends, and so on. If you are active in any of the others please let us know.

Within the Nativz Esports Club website and the Ireland Collegiate discord server, we’ve built a community hub. It’s a start, we’ll make it bigger, especially with your help.

Launched last year in May, the Collegiate Challenge was conceived to give the top two ranked colleges/universities a chance to compete for the No. 1 title (background on the points system available here).

In building this concept further we’ve pushed the date back from May to September. The intention is for the top-ranked institution to host the event. For this year that means we’re in active conversation with TU Dublin about hosting the 2023/24 Ireland Esports Collegiate Challenge within their campus.

So, what’s the plan then you may be asking? We’re working on a one day event that will see teams/players compete in each of the titles we’ve offered across the year. There’s more detail to follow but we wanted to take this opportunity to get this one on your radar now!

Thanks for reading.

Now share with your Irish esports friends.